Coping Mechanisms
by trufflemores
Summary: 2.15. After Jay's death, Barry comforts Caitlin.


When Barry gets the call, he doesn't even begrudge the fact that he's only had two and a half hours of sleep.

He rolls over in bed, smacks his hand on the desk, and picks up his phone.

 _You awake?_

For a moment, Barry thinks about not responding. About letting the unspoken, _No_ , speak for him. He considers rolling over and smashing his face back into its cozy indent in the pillow.

The moment passes and he types instead. _What's up?_

 _My apartment is too big._

It takes his sleep-deprived brain a minute to pick up the first straws. At last, he realizes what she's hinting at. _Want some company?_

 _Please._

He's there in fifty seconds.

"I forgot how nice your apartment was," he says, husky, amused. "When'd you redecorate?"

He's tired enough that even the lightly padded carpet appeals to him, but he can't help but notice the changes. The warm, summer pastels have deepened to resonating midnight tones: purple, lilac, dusky blue. Pillows, bed sheets, even walls reflect the shift. It's somehow fitting and sad to him: there's a lack of _Caitlin_ here that is almost surgically precise, imprinting on the space of a sense of transience.

"A while ago," is Caitlin's vague reply, sitting on the bed and inviting Barry to do the same. She's not even wearing pajamas, centered cross-legged amid a tangled circle of sheets. Mirroring her posture, Barry looks around the room.

He can feel the insomnia: its residence is confirmed by the untidy stacks of papers in formerly flawless corners and crumpled remains of half-approached problems – clothes, books, movies – scattered across the floor.

Barry knows it's a silly question. He asks it anyway. "Are you okay?"

Caitlin smiles humorlessly at him. "Should I be?"

"No."

Barry has to admit that her bed is comfy. A stupid, sleepy part of him wonders why she can't sleep, but it's never about comfort. It's always about the wheels which will not stop grinding, unceasing, unending. They're utterly unconcerned that the owner of the brilliant mind responsible for them is suffering. All they do is turn. Relentlessly. Until something breaks.

Barry looks at Caitlin and sees the broken spokes. The skipping gears.

The exhausted, agonizing efforts of a person trying to conceal an all-consuming grief, to make the terrible bearable.

There aren't words that can set the gears back into place and simultaneously command them to settle down, so he settles on getting up and sitting directly beside her. When she hugs him, sideways, not looking at him, he puts his arm around her back, anchoring her. He's been here too many times: struggling to put down his thoughts long enough to catch sleep before sunrise, after sunset, any time of day which is not crammed with things to do.

Squeezing her lightly and wishing he could somehow _remove_ her suffering instead of merely trying to dull it, he reaches over with one hand and carefully picks up the laptop balanced on the nightstand Barry pulls it carefully onto his lap and powers it up. Calls up Netflix, uses his login, and picks the first low-key TV series he can find.

He isn't sure who watches it: his mind operates at quarter-speed after two in the morning, skimming over information, scarcely aware of actual dialogue. Caitlin doesn't say a word, leaning against the headboard, then his shoulder, and finally tucked against his chest.

By the fourth episode, they're both slouched against the headboard, his thumb tracing idle patterns against her shoulder while she keeps a hand tucked over his chest. The lights are off – an acrobatic feat on his behalf, given that he does it before she's even noticed his absence – and the atmosphere settles. It doesn't feel like peace yet – he can feel the white noise, _see_ it, the way it lingers in the air like static before a storm – but it feels like something approximating calm.

Like something approaching _okay_.

Despite his subconscious intentions, neither of them sleep that night. He doesn't even remember shutting the laptop down again. At some point, it just happens. After that, he finds himself flat on his back just listening to the quiet, almost undetectable sounds of sunrise.

Even though his sleepy mind fails to recollect it, he must open the shade over the window and the window itself, too. They've both settled in their own spaces on top of the sheets: him with his arms tucked underneath his head, eyes closed, while he listens to her breathe at his side, back facing him as she watches the sunrise climb the horizon. From the window, a refreshingly cool breeze drifts into the space. And in a way, despite the unfamiliarity of the sheets and the unexpected presence at his side, it feels exactly like home.

After sunrise, they're both up: there's no point in sleeping in when sleep won't come. Barry cracks joints stiff with lethargy before she stands up and hugs him, bringing his arms down to hug her back.

It lingers a moment longer than he expects – Caitlin has never tended to be the cuddliest person; Cisco, actually, wins that title, as sharing a bed with him on several a metahuman stakeout has proven – but Barry lets it, trying to infuse every ounce of _it's okay_ into it that he can.

Just when he thinks she might break, she lets go, idling off to the shower. Taking advantage of her momentary distraction, Barry compels tired feet to the kitchen and cooks half a dozen eggs, toasting bread while he's at it. She ambles into his space after maybe half an hour, taking stock of the situation before claiming a slice of toasted bread from the top of a stack.

"Someone's hungry," she adds, almost amused.

Barry makes a self-deprecating noise – somewhere between _always_ and _this is for you, not me_ – but still ends up eating three-quarters of the meal. She's only human, and he's got a supermetabolism. It demands compensation.

Food doesn't wake him up, and there's already a headache forming behind his eyes, but he looks at her and can't regret the last seven hours. Or the next fifteen standing between him and his bed.

He'll survive; they both will.

They always do.

. o .

Caitlin actually leaves Star Labs early that day, clocking out around two-thirty. Without her, operations slow for the day: Barry and Cisco tackle a couple petty crimes before Barry mentions a report he has to write for Captain Singh and bows out for the rest of the afternoon.

At the precinct, he's somewhat less focused than he hoped – Singh catches him dozing off twice and finally Joe tells him to go home – but it doesn't matter.

Sitting back on the couch and watching the sun dip low in the horizon, Barry sends off a quick, almost involuntary text. _You okay?_

 _No_. It's brief. Honest. _But I will be_.

He keeps his phone handy with him for the rest of the evening, but that's all she says.

And, he decides, it's enough.

It's been a difficult week, a taxing month, and an extraordinary two years. And sometimes even they just can't cope with it, can't put on a smile and pretend it isn't happening, can't talk their way out of it.

Sometimes they just have to endure it.

But slowly, they get there: back to a place they can live with.


End file.
